Chapter 28
711 Words
*Eliza's POV*
My hands were perfectly steady.
That surprised me a little, honestly. I had expected them to shake, some small physical confession of what I was doing, what I had already decided to do. But they didn't. They were calm and sure as I tipped the contents of the small capsule into the glass, watched it dissolve completely, and set the glass down among the other drinks on the tray like it belonged there.
Because it did.
Everything on this table was intentional. The meal I had spent two hours preparing. My dress, pressed and pretty. My hair, which I had redone twice until it sat the way he used to look at it before he stopped looking at me altogether.
Every detail. Every single one was complete and perfect!
I stepped back and looked at the spread and nodded once to myself.
Then I turned to the maids.
"You can all go to bed," I said. Warm and easy. The smile of a woman who had everything under control. "I'll take it from here tonight. Go and rest."
They exchanged glances the way staff do when something is slightly unusual but not unusual enough to question. Then they nodded and disappeared one by one until the house was quiet and the kitchen was mine and the tray was mine and the evening was exactly the way I had arranged it.
I waited.
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The front door opened at just past nine.
I heard his keys first ... the particular sound of Alexander's keys, which I had memorised without meaning to, the way you memorise things that matter to you even when you're trying to convince yourself they don't.
I smoothed my dress. Touched my hair once. Picked up the smile I had been rehearsing and put it on.
He came around the corner and I stepped forward and opened my arms and hugged him.
He hugged me back. Briefly. The type of hug that is more reflex than feeling, his arms going up because that is what arms do when someone hugs you, not because there is any particular desire to be close. He disentangled himself gently and I let him, still smiling.
"Look," I said, stepping aside and gesturing to the table with both hands like a woman presenting something she was proud of. "I made your favourites. All of them."
He looked at the table.
Then he looked at me.
"I'm not hungry," he said. Calmly. Not unkind. Just tiredly. "I appreciate it, Eliza. I just want to rest tonight. I've had a really long day at work and right now I want to crash."
The smile stayed on my face through the small drop in my chest. Ofcourse I expected these exact words from him.
"That's fine," I said. "That's completely fine." I moved to the tray and lifted the glass, his drink, his favourite. He always requested for this drink when he came home after a long day, the one I had prepared very carefully.
"At least have something to drink. You don't have to eat anything."
He looked at the glass.
For one moment ...just one — he hesitated.
My heart did something tight and small inside my chest.
Then he reached out and took it from me.
And drank.
Not sipping. He gulped down the whole thing, the way he always did. With his head tilted back, the glass was empty in seconds. He set it back down on the tray and let out a short breath.
"Thank you,I needed this" he said.
"Of course," I replied.
He said goodnight and turned toward the stairs, and I watched him go ...staring at his shoulders, his back, the particular way he moved through a room like he owned it and I smiled.
I got into my room immediately and sat on the edge of my bed. I reached over to the nightstand and picked up my phone and checked the time.
10:25 PM.
I set the phone back down.
Folded my hands in my lap.
Stared at the wall in front of me with the calm, patient expression of a woman who had made a decision and was entirely at peace with it.
"The drug should kick in," I thought, "in about an hour."
- Writer
